


Uninvited Guest

by commanderlurker (honeybee592)



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Old Republic - The Nathema Conspiracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 23:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18020804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybee592/pseuds/commanderlurker
Summary: Jonas returns home to find an uninvited (but not unwanted) guest has broken in and drunk all his beer.





	Uninvited Guest

Jonas probably should have laid off that last whiskey, but watching a mark sure does make a man thirsty, and it’s not like he can’t handle his liquor. At least the whiskey made up for a boring evening. He wanders back to his apartment, steady enough, wondering how he’ll spin ‘Day 245: Still nothing’ in his report.

Gives the door with a wide berth, checking for vagrants or miscreants lurking in his alcove. He’s about to enter his passcode when he gets that no good prickle on the back of his neck. Something’s up. He narrows his eyes and scans the door. Lock’s still in place, so no forced entry. He slips a spike in the entry panel and runs the history through his data pad. No brute force on his passcode. Something more sneaky than that. Too sophisticated for the local gangs. He immediately thinks Empire. Imperial Intelligence. He unholsters his balster, keeping it raised as he enters his passcode.

The door swishes open and Jonas sticks to the wall, eyeing the entrance hall. Nothing. Not a sound. He steps in, quiet, and pads down the hall. Lights are off. Just how he left them. He flicks them on and someone groans. Male. His heart rate spikes. Injured SIS agent? Injured intruder? He pokes his head around the corner, finger touching the trigger. 

Jonas Balkar is too seasoned to do something as base as gasp out loud, but he does blink when he spies the man asleep on his couch, face screwed up under the lights, beer bottles strewn over the floor. Six bottles. Jonas’ whole supply.  _ Wow, Theron Shan, you haven’t called in seven years and now you break into my house and drink all my beer? Rude. _

Jonas holsters his blaster and walks over to Theron. His grey and red jacket is new, for various definitions of new. It’s patched and worn, scorch marked, but Jonas has never seen it before. Four days of stubble, by Jonas’ reckoning. And a real stupid haircut. Shaved sides that look like they’re on week three of growing out, with his usual carefully styled swoosh on top. Yeah. Real stupid. Jonas shakes his head. He resists the urge to clap his hands and yell  _ wake up _ and instead fetches a blanket. He tucks Theron in and can’t help notice the dark circles under Theron’s eyes, the scarring around his implants, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Even as he sleeps he looks tired. Exhausted. Beyond exhausted. There’s a story there, but it can wait. 

*

Sleep doesn’t come. Jonas lies in bed, mulling over Theron’s arrival and what it could mean. Theron left the SIS, what, seven years ago? And not on good terms. Jonas couldn’t blame him for leaving. He always was one to follow a cause. And destroying the invading Zakuul empire? Didn’t get a cause much bigger than that. Theron Shan, Spy Master of the Alliance, sorry,  _ Eternal  _ Alliance, working alongside a sith and a Jedi Knight to bring peace and harmony to the galaxy by uniting the Empire and the Republic against a common enemy. Noble. Lofty. Ambitious. 

Doomed to fail.

A shuffle of footsteps, the rustle and thunk of boots and clothes hitting the floor. Theron slips into bed. His foot nudges Jonas’ foot. Knuckles brush against Jonas’ back. Jonas holds in his sigh. He should be pissed off. Nothing for years, no calls, no holos, no messages, and Theron breaks into Jonas’ apartment thinking he can just go back to the way they were? 

A shudder, a choked sniff.

Oh. Oh no.  _ Theron, what have you done? _

They never were good with feelings. Sex they could do. Very well, Jonas might add. But a cheer-you-up BJ probably isn’t appropriate right now, so Jonas rolls over and wraps Theron up in his arms. They shift around, finding resting places for knees and legs and elbows as some dam bursts inside of Theron. Snotty keening sobs wrack Theron. All Jonas can do is hold him and stroke the one stretch of back his hand can reach, and run his fingers over the stubble of that stupid haircut.

Lovers do what lovers must. He holds his idiot spy until sleep comes to both of them.

*

Bed’s empty when Jonas wakes up. He shouldn’t be disappointed or surprised. Before he can chastise himself, clinks from the kitchen tell him his uninvited guest hasn’t done a runner. He gets up, wanders through with a yawn. How do you say ‘hi’ to someone who hasn’t returned your calls for seven years, who just walked out without even saying goodbye, who’s ignored the intel you’ve been feeding him?  _ Hey asshole, welcome back.  _ Or,  _ Missed you _ , with a kiss. 

“Morning babe--what the the fuck happened to your back?” Jonas stares at the jagged round scar on Theron’s bare back, still red and angry, just to the left of his spine.

“Lightsaber pike.” He doesn’t turn around, just keeps fiddling with the caf machine.

“Lightsaber pike? Theron, look at me.”

Theron’s back rises and falls with a long sigh. He turns, eyes down. There’s another jagged scar on Theron’s chest. The pike must have gone right through. How is he still alive? And what is  _ doing _ here? Theron finally looks up. Deep pain fills Theron’s eyes, agony and guilt. Jonas’ stomach turns. His heart aches. Whatever Theron’s done, whatever he’s been through, he’s come here for refuge. 

“Talk to me,” Jonas says.

“I need caf first.” 

“Move over, I’ll do it. You go sit down.”

Theron smiles, or attempts to -- it’s more of a half grimace -- and shuffles out the kitchen. Jonas watches. He manages to tear his eyes away from the scar. Still got a great ass. And that hair is even worse from the back.

*

Takes two pots of caf and one pot of tea for Theron to catch Jonas up on the last seven years. The last nine months are the most grueling, most agonising. The most Theron. Theron stops and starts, frowns, taps his implants. Like he’s trying to remember what really happened, and not just what he thinks happened. Objectivity can be an elusive bastard. 

Months of deep cover have taken their toll. Jonas knows what that’s like. Compromising your own morals for the greater good, for the mission, lying to yourself for so long that you start believing the shit you’re talking. Doing all that and almost dying right at the end, right when you’re almost free.

“As soon as I was up and walking again, the Commander asked me to leave Odessen. Leave the Alliance. Everything I worked for--Everything I did--” Theron shudders and sighs. The anger dissipates. “At least they rescued me. Could’ve left me to die I suppose.” A sip of tea. “Lana. I thought Lana might fight for me, but in the end I guess...I guess I broke her trust, too.”

Jonas wants to say that everything will be alright, that Lana (a Sith. Sounds nice by all accounts but still, a  _ Sith _ ) and the Commander will come around eventually, but he’s never seen Theron so… lost. Defeated. Not even after Ziost.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t see Trant wanting me back. Malcolm…” Theron shudders. “No. He burned that bridge. Not me. The Alliance... The SIS…”

Jonas takes Theron’s cup and sets it down. He pulls Theron into a side-by-side hug. Their skin is sticky. Soft. “You always were one for noble causes.” 

Theron snorts. “Sorry for breaking in. My head’s all over the place. I haven’t had a chance to decompress. I didn’t know where else to go. I thought of you first and knew it was a terrible idea but I couldn’t think of anyone else. I just had to go somewhere and I didn’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Sorry for not calling.”

“You’ve been busy.”

Silence. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Theron whispers. He sniffs. A tear hits Jonas’ arm.

“Small steps. First, a shower. I just have sonic here, but the pleasure baths are down the road. We’ll have a proper soak there later. Then food. Clothes.” Jonas ruffles Theron’s hair. “Then we do something about this mess.”

Theron laughs. Not a full laugh, but it’s the best he’s done all morning.

“Then we’ll figure out the big stuff. The galaxy always needs saving from something, and there’s always a Shan involved.” He kisses Theron’s temple. “Welcome home, Theron.”

“Home,” Theron says. “Yeah. I guess you are.”


End file.
